TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- A Pierce County judge's arrest 22 years ago in North Carolina during the tense period following a Ku Klux Klan shootout with communists dubbed the Greensboro Massacre has become an issue in this fall's election.

Rudy Tollefson, seeking re-election to the bench after his suspension last year for misconduct, is making an issue of the 1979 arrest of his opponent, Superior Court Judge Frank Cuthbertson.

In public forums, Tollefson has said Cuthbertson "was part of the incident."

Cuthbertson says he was not at the shootout but was arrested a week later when he went to funerals for the five communists killed Nov. 3, 1979. He says he believes the misdemeanor conviction had been wiped from his record.

Cuthbertson, 25 at the time, said he was charged with a weapons violation when he drove to Greensboro for the funerals. As a community organizer, he says he knew the dead through Duke University and his anti-apartheid activism.

"The bottom line is, I'm not ashamed of knowing those people. I'm not ashamed of opposing the Klan. I'm not ashamed that I went to the funeral."

He was arrested for carrying a rifle in his car. That would not normally be illegal, but a state of emergency had been declared in Greensboro, giving police authority to search people and vehicles for weapons.

Cuthbertson, then living 550 miles away in Alabama, said he had not been aware of that development. As a black man doing civil-rights work in the South, he said he worried about his safety and frequently carried a rifle in the trunk of his car.

Whether the offense was deleted from his record is not clear.

The only court record left -- a single card in the state archives in Raleigh, N.C. -- indicates the misdemeanor remains, said Howard Neumann, assistant district attorney for Guilford County, N.C.

"It shows that on Jan. 4, 1980, this guy pled not guilty, and that he was found guilty," Neumann told The News Tribune of Tacoma, reading from the court document. "He was given a 12-month sentence, and that was suspended ... and he was ordered to pay court costs. They were never paid."

An arrest order for Cuthbertson was issued in 1980. He said he never received it.

Cuthbertson's sentence was suspended as long as he didn't commit another crime in the next five years. Neumann said it appears he never reoffended.

He characterized Cuthbertson's run-in with the law as "a piddly little thing."

Tollefson said he learned about the incident after someone tipped him to a 1980 right-wing missive -- "Red Tide Rising in the Carolinas" -- posted on the Internet. He raised the issue at two recent candidate forums - in Gig Harbor on Oct. 11 and in Lakewood on Oct. 18.

Some of those who attended say the tactic backfired.

"We never did clarify if (Cuthbertson) was actively involved or if he was there to see a friend," said Ron Jones, chairman of the Gig Harbor Chamber's Legislative Affairs Committee. "It did make Rudy Tollefson look petty and cheap."

Cuthbertson was appointed Pierce County's 21st judge -- a new position -- in January. Tollefson failed to win election last year while suspended and is now challenging Cuthbertson.

Tollefson was suspended by the state Supreme Court in 2000 after the state Judicial Conduct Commission found he had violated judicial conduct standards.